The JDBC-ODBC Bridge enables Java applications to access ODBC data sources through the JDBC interface.
The JDBC-ODBC Bridge enables Java applications to access ODBC data sources through the JDBC interface. It was created to allow access to data sources that had an ODBC driver but did not have a native JDBC driver.
Important note (from Oracle's Java SE documentation):
The JDBC-ODBC Bridge should be considered a transitional solution; it will be removed in JDK 8.